Davar Torah: Parshas Noach (Noah)

SUMMARY:

Shortly after God created the world, he destroyed the world.

The first humans, Adam and Eve, had many kids, who had many kids. But they forgot about Hashem.

They started to misbehave and particularly didn't do so well in the category of stealing. Humanities ways were so corrupt that even the animals became corrupt. Rashi says the animals were mating with different species.

But there was one person in the whole world who was righteous, his name was Noach. Because of this, Hashem saved him, his wife, his sons, and his son's wives'.

So Noach builds the Ark, brings his family, and brings all the animals with him. He feeds the animals the whole time. Once the flood dies down, they exit and repopulate the Earth. That's the gist of this Parshah.

HOW TO MAKE SENSE OF THIS?

If you were to just read the 5 books of Moses without giving it much thought, you might just think it's a bunch of random stories and random rules. But, if you were to really analyze the text, you would come to realize that all of these stories and rules actually don't make any sense...

There are contradictions left and right, and it talks about things that I would never give a hoot about. It would never make any sense to me as a stand alone text, but it doesn't stand alone.

When the Torah was given the Jewish people, there were actually two Torah's given. One is called the Written Torah, and the other is called the Oral Torah. The Written Torah is what's actually written down in the 5 Books of Moses (and the writings from the rest of our prophets), and the Oral Torah is what has been passed down by our Rabbis.

The Written Torah talks about wearing Tzitzit, but it never says what are Tzitzit. How in the world are we suppose to know what to wear if the Torah doesn't even define for us what they are? Our Rabbis tell us. This is the Oral Torah.

The Written Torah talks about wearing Tefilin, and if you look inside the Torah you will not see a description that they are 2 small, square black boxes, with straps on them with parchment stuffed inside. But we know these are Tefilin because it has been passed down Orally, by our Rabbis.

Open up the Written Torah and the first would is בראשית (bah-rei-shis). The first Hebrew letter in that word is called a Bet. But who says? How do I know it's not called a Zee? We learn it's called a "Bet" because Hashem told Moses it was called a Bet while he was on Mount Sinai and Moses taught this to Joshua, who taught it to the Elders, who taught it to the Prophets, who taught it to the Men of the Great Assembly, who taught it to the Rabbis, who taught it to Zach Hearst who is teaching it to you.

Ok great, so now we can understand that we wouldn't understand anything without our Rabbis (and this goes for all of the stories within the 5 Books of Moses).

There is one Rabbi who is the most famous of all for his commentaries on all of our Written Torah, his name is Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchak, or Rashi. He was born in France in 1040 (or 4800 on the Jewish calendar). At that time there was no unified commentary on our writings. He began to write his commentary and they were widely accepted by the whole Yeshiva world. The greatest Rabbis at the time were astounded at Rashi's simplicity and clarity, so he became THE Commentator for every subsequent generation. 1000 years later, we still look to him to understand.

RASHI

Every week there is a new Torah portion read on Shabbos. And it's split up in a way so that ever year we end up reading the Torah, and then we start again. It is a widely accepted practice in the Jewish world to read that weeks Torah portion 2 times along with all of Rashi's commentary. Rashi gives us a lot of new information, and clears things up.

So lets look at one of his comments:

Tt the start of Parshas Noach we have a little bit of a confusing sentence.

It starts with:

"These are the generations of Noach: Noach was a righteous man, perfect in his generation, he walked with God. Noach had begotten 3 sons; Shem, Ham, and Japheth."

Do you see it?

Something's weird.

Lets look at it again:

"THESE are the GENERATIONS of NOACH:" (Alright hit me with it! What are the generations you speak of?!) "NOACH was a RIGHTEOUS MAN..."

Ummm? How about.....

THESE are NOT the GENERATIONS of NOACH.

It's more like:

"THIS is a CHARACTERISTIC of NOACH: Noach was a righteous man"

Or it should say...

"Coming up in one second I will tell you the Generations of Noach, but right now I want to just let you know that he was righteous and perfect and he walked with God. Ok now the generations of Noach are as follows: Shem, Ham, and Japhteth."

QUESTION:

Why does God write that "These are the generations of Noach:" But then he doesn't say the generations of Noach until the next sentence?

Rashi knew that we would be confused here, so we comments. He says:

"[This is] To teach you that the main תולדותיהם (toldoseihem) of righteous people are their good deeds."

What are תולדותיהם (toldoseihem)?

This is the Hebrew word used for "Generations"

It's the same word we have in the Torah when it writes:

"These are the תולדותיהם (GENERATIONS) of Noach."

So Rashi is saying that "the main GENERATIONS of righteous people are their good deeds."

Their GENERATIONS are not the children that come after them, but their GENERATIONS are their good deeds. Meaning good deeds create an insane chain reaction effect.

Wow, amazing idea. Our actions have an insane impact.

But Rashi is not just giving us a cute idea. That's not what he does when he's commenting on the Torah. He's trying to help us understand why God wrote the Torah the way he did. Rashi's saying,

"God didn't write this sentence in an arbitrary way, and now I'm here to give you a nice cute idea about good deeds." Rashi is saying,

"The ONLY reason God wrote the Torah in this way, was JUST to teach us this lesson."

Right HERE at THIS spot in the Torah (book 1, chapter 6, sentence 9, words 1-6) God wanted to let all of humanity know that really whenever a righteous person does a good dead, this is his main offspring. And not his literal children.

It's crazy when you think about it. Children are entire human beings. Do you know what human beings do? They live their lives for like 120 years on earth, waking up every single day, interacting with people, creating things, making connections, traveling the world, changing lives. And then they have kids who have kids who have kids who all do the same exact thing!

And Rashi is saying,

"Yeah this happens, but those kids aren't really the main posterity that come from a righteous person. True, those kids make a crazy difference, and it's true you can't even imagine the impact they have.... And even so, I'm here to tell you that the main posterity that comes from a righteous person are the good things he does. Whenever he gives charity, whenever he visits the sick, whenever he honors his parents, whenever he returns a lost object to its owner, these are his main offspring. And you can't even begin to imagine the effects that one of these tiny little deeds has on the entire world and the worlds future generations."